The Deuce

[Andres629]

351, 351, 351! Wooooo!

 

[BONES]

351!


So got some junk done today.

Swapped in the 130 amp alty in place of 95a stock unit. Put another set of C bushings in, this time "used" pollys but they are in better shape than what was in there. Replaced lower shock bushings as they were completely fuxt. Did some body work straightening out front fenders and pulled off the crappy front rubber belt flares and actually mounted the fenders properly this time haha.

Busted my stock grill even worse accidentally.

Buddy balanced my tires and now she's smooth as glass again, well for at least 1 trip haha.

Checked, changed and topped up fluids. Oh and I spooled out the winch and pulled it in all nice and straight like and under load even.

I also purchased and mounted my new fire extinguisher today!! pix later.

Wheeling tomorrow so I'll be sure to post pix after some .

 

[Andres629]

Nice, wheeling pics are always awesome, seeing as I can't wheel myself! Have you ever considered running airsoft bb's in your tires to balance them? Works like a charm!

 

[BONES]

Couple days late but here's pix!

So we went out and first obstacle I snapped a rear ujoint AGAIN! GRRR! So I did the rest of the trail in front wheel drive and to my surprise it did pretty good actually. Had to winch up a couple hills but other than that she did good. Busted out a rear side window too, dammit. Had to take a bypass on a few obstacles and ended up leaning the back window into a tree and it popped. sigh. Looks like I need to either find a replacement used or plastic....

She actually drives real nice on the road in spooled front wheel drive too.

Airing down and disconnecting sway bar at the trail head.

Onto the trail.

Then I take a few attempts to climb a steep short climb where my front bumper hits on the way up and my back bumper hits on the way back down for a second run at it. Few tries later and my rear shaft spits out the ujoint caps and goes BANG! DOH!! Rear shaft failure is too common lately, must be time to upgrade to 1350's.

Here's the climb, looks easy enough and should have been if that joint didn't come apart, I wasn't even being hard on it yet dammit.

Here's how far I made it and kept tagging that tree with my passenger rear tire until the joint snapped.

Since it was almost lunch time the group decided to take advantage of my down time and ate lunch at the creek crossing called Choplicker Pass.

Then I had to winch up the easier way.

Here's the easier way.

Then onto the rest of the trail.

Everyone seems to be facebook people and are uploading vids there instead of YouTube, frigging people. I'll have to ask to get copies of the vids so I can YouTube em for y'all.

 

[BONES]

So the more research I do the more I realize my 3.5 diff gears are transferring the engine torque more to the drive shafts and tranny and tcase, well not really but basically they're not transfering the torque to the axles where it should be and instead is placing the strain on the trans/case and shafts. I need to upgrade them anyways as I don't believe they will last long with v8 woo-pow. I have a couple front DC 1 ton solid axle drive shafts with what I believe are 1350 joints, maybe bigger, they both use flat flange mounts so it should be easy to adapt under there. As much as I hate to admit it, now I need to decide on what gearing to slap in the diffs.

I know I wanted some 5.38's at one point, but then I would have NO highway gears at all, the math on the 5.13's states it would get me back to stock-ish rpms on the road but that's with an OD trans and with out I would still end up revving a bit too high at 110kph (70ish mph). So then 4.88's pop in the picture again. I don't know, maybe I should just get a set of 4.10's or 4.56's and call er a day?

C my theory was adding a bunch of Woo-pow under the hood and then it would not matter what gears were in the diffs..... Well that's true as long as the drive shafts and trans tcase can take the torque. To lessen the torque impact on the trans/tcase and drive shafts I need to re-gear.

Maybe I should find a C6 to go with this Ford np 205 and slap these 1ton drive shafts in it too, then the 351 wont care about the 3.50 diff gears, lol and parts will stop flying out from underneath it, haha. yeah right hey.

 

[Bennybooster]

Well with a v8 I would guess 4.56 would be nice, but I don't have any experience with that so wait till someone with experience comes on. Although with the v6 and a manual I would say 5.38

 

[kris97ranger]

hows this thing goin? ive got a few updates in my samurai thread

 

[BONES]

Well, we're all moved into the new place now, Bronco's ready to wheel when I figure out our budget and can afford to toss some fuel in it. She hasn't been out playing since the trip posted above. I fixed her, threw another drive shaft in it and rebuilt the starter out of 3 used starters, lol. Used moisture barrier plastic to make a new rear window and there she sits.

I do have plans to start lowering it tho, figure I'll redesign the front upper and lower coil mounts to drop her a couple inches up front as well as relocate the bump stops outboard from where they are now. Then I want to pull the 3" blocks out of the rear. My rear drivers side leaf mounts are getting worse and worse, the shackle mount is rusted enough that it's bending up at an angle and lowering my rear spring height on that side, so I'll definitely have to deal with that sooner than later. Just not sure if I want to waist my time fixing it or rip it apart and start linking it and I don't have all the parts to link it yet, nor can afford them at this point.

 

[Andres629]

Well, as far as your gearing is concerned, if it helps you, I'll be running an auto behind my 4.0 with 5.13's in the diffs. No overdrive in the auto either.

Also, as far as linking goes... build it once, build it right I say. But, if you don't have the coin, then fix it and wheel it. My logic is, if something is broken and I have plans to change it at some point anyway, I'm just going to change it when it is broken the first time. Just my $.02

 

[BONES]

Yeah I know what your sayin man, build it once I totally agree. I have most of the steel to build the links and brackets and such, but I need at least 7 Johnny Joints to finish it off and we all know they're not cheap when you need that many, lol. Not to mention I need to get my shop wired for 220 before I can actually weld anything. That's going to be a few bucks in itself I'm sure.

I was looking at it yesterday and I'm fairly confident it will still hold up I just gotta be careful to not hit it any more or bend it back and beef it up. The reason it bent up on me is because I dropped off a log and hit the shackle end of the leaf spring on the log and it bent the mount up, I've done this twice now and the mount has a good inch or more of upward angle to it, no cracks just bent it. When I bent it the first time I didn't realize I had done it,, but the last time I put 2 and 2 together. The same obstacle did both hits on 2 different trips, I thought it was just my rear bumper that hit, but last time my buddy pointed out my shackle and mount had bent on that hit, DOH!

I chipped away the undercoat and dirt and stuff and it looks like the mount is actually not rusted away like I thought, it's just a very light duty design by the looks of it, thin stamped steel. I'm thinking about just trying to bend it back and gusseting it for now just to add some strength back to the already bent and possibly fatigued metal. May as well gusset both shackle mounts while I'm at it if I do go that route. I just can't justify replacing the mount with another thin steel replacement part that I'll have to remove from both vehicles provided I can even find one worth taking. And going through the trouble of fabbing up a entirely new shackle mount for it to just be replaced with links in the near future is also not high in my books.

I'll definitely be wheeling her some more once I get funds in order again, no question there, lol. It's just a question as to whether I fix the mount or leave it for now. I figure if I pull the blocks out of the rear springs I may as well bend the shackle mount back in place and gusset it, but at that point it will require the front be lowered too, so again I'm on the edge of a few options and obviously haven't had enough to push me over the edge and actually do something about it. lol

 

[Andres629]

Well, I'm pulling the shackle mounts off the ol' BII this week. If you want, I'll chip away at 'em and see what condition they're in and if they are good, you can have them for cost of shipping. If I keep 'em they're going in the scrap bin.

 

[BONES]

Well I really appreciate the offer Andres but I think I'll pass on them.

I'll make do with what I have for now and work my way towards gathering the rest of the link parts I need to get on that project. I figure if I went through the trouble of removing and replacing these shackle mounts I might be inclined to keep it leaf sprung rear instead of progressing towards my actual goal of linking it.

Here's another dilemma I have encountered again, went out wheeling and now I know definitively what is causing the Deuce to spit out its rear drive shaft from 3 of the last 5 trips out. Axle wrap. I kinda figured it was the culprit being I have 3" blocks under them sploder springs and I'm spooled on 38's, but I never actually felt any wrap or binding until this last trip. Full throttle hill climb assaults spinning all 4 tires in deep soft sand I could feel the drive shaft binding as it rotated and the more it dug in the more I pronounced it was. So after that I kinda took it easy on the full throttle aspect.

After a few hours out ditch wheeling we came to a fairly steep climb that was hard base dirt with a couple inches of goo on top, buddy in the Cherokee on 35" old style bfg's went up full tilt boogie red lined and mud flying all the way sawing his tires back and forth as he slowly spun his way up barely making the climb, JK second he has brand new 37" Xterrains he spun up the hill but was no where near as dramatic as the Cherokee, last was me. I pulled up to the climb and decide to crawl it, low range, first gear at just above idle, I had no trouble till about 3/4 to the top when I stopped moving forward and sat there spinning all 4 slowly. I started sawing the wheels back and forth but didn't climb any further. At that point I pressed the throttle to the floor and she started to spool up to about 4000rpm when I decided I would roll back and couple inches and gun it....Yeah All that happened was clunk and I knew exactly what that sound was. Then I slid down the hill backwards to pull the rear drive shaft and drive out in front whee; drive again.

Needless to say I'm now at a cross road so to speak. Do I take out the blocks and keep the leafs and possibly build an anti-wrap bar, or build an anti-wrap bar and keep the blocks and leafs for now, or pull it apart and start building links that I cant afford anyways. lol

I know I know do it once do it right, I know but I cant afford to do it the way I want right now, however I prolly can afford to swing an anti-wrap bar under there for very little coin. U C I have the old stock radius arms from the 76 d44 front diff I have under the Bronco and I have enough scrap steal kicking around to turn it into an anti-wrap bar. Weld a plate to the diff to bolt the rad arm to solid and then build a shackle mount at the frame end for it to move fairly freely throughout suspension travel, I have a couple 3/4" heims that would fit the bill for the shackle mount too.

On another topic, I have the pieces cut and shaped for my new front upper coil mounts, but the more I think about it the more I want to buy a couple FOA coil overs for the front of it. lol. I know I'm broke right now but cash flow will return and in a few months will be income tax return......

Anyways, on with the wheeling pics.

Couple of us decided to head out for some ditch wheeling.

 

[kris97ranger]

i say anti wrap bar. just do it so it doesnt impede flex. you already flex more then enough so why link it.

 

[RangerSVT]

Damn, you got the white stuff on the brown stuff already?? Guess I'm used to january before getting that stuff...lol I'd go with the antiwrap for now, like you say, build to your budget...
SVT

 

[BONES]

Damn, you got the white stuff on the brown stuff already?? Guess I'm used to january before getting that stuff...lol I'd go with the antiwrap for now, like you say, build to your budget...
SVT

Yeah this is our 3rd snow fall this winter all ready the first snow fall was a couple days before Halloween, the first 2 didn't stay but this one has stayed since Friday. We usually get snow in mid to late December that stays but the last few winters have changed, more snow and colder weather seems to be the norm now as the last 3 years have been at least 3 feet deeper snow and a lot longer stints of below -40C ish temps.

Ah well snow wheeling is a blast and when you have snow on the ground for 6 months of the year you learn to make the best of it.

i say anti wrap bar. just do it so it doesnt impede flex. you already flex more then enough so why link it.

True the front flex's all right but the rear could use more. It's like a 70/30 flex front to rear, I'd like it to be closer to 50/50 by time its where I want it. I'll admit these Explorer rear springs actually flex pretty good for what they are, but there could always be more!! I mean I'm probably getting a good 12" more droop up front over the rear and not to mention every time I flex these leafs into negative arc I'm slowly killing them dead, hence the axle wrap I'm now experiencing. I do want to pull the rear shocks off next trip out so I can see how much flex they are restricting. They're 12" stroke Gabriel's and I'm not sure if they're long enough and I think these sploder springs could maybe droop and stuff a bit more.

I've tossed around the ideas of Chevy 64's and in-boarding the rear springs and drop links and 3/4 elliptic and revolvers shackles and all that jazz, but I always end up back at wanting to link the rear and besides pretty much all these leaf mods will cost as much money and be as much work as linking it.

Pricing out joints I need 8 of em at roughly 40 a piece which is around 300bux, 64"s leafs are 250 a pair at the wreckers plus I'll need new u bolts and bushings so that jumps it up to joints price. In-boarding my existing springs would be cheaper but they are getting bagged out and I would need to build mounts to inboard em which is basically the same for linking it, 4 mounts and move the perches for leafs.

I'm going to make that anti-wrap work for now, as I cant handle being out of wheeling any more. Deciding if I'll remove the blocks now.

Did I show you guys what I picked up for 50bux about a month ago?

It came out of a Lincoln Mark 5 from the 70's. It's the exact same width wheel to wheel mount as my 65" truck 9" and has the same big bearing 31 spline axles and 5 on 5.5 bp as mine too. This ones already set up for 3 link and coils to boot. Only down fall is it has 2.75 gears lol so the r&p are not useful to me.